This invention relates to a high-power pulse generator of the type using a spark discharge device to initiate each pulse. More specifically it relates to a pulse generator which employs a transmission line both to provide capacitance for energy storage and to appropriately shape the output pulses.
The invention is particularly useful in the generation of high-power RF signals in remote locations. For example, it is often desirable to deploy an RF generator from an aircraft. Since the generator is expendable in such cases, it should have a relatively low cost, and since a number of them may be carried in the aircraft, they should be light in weight. They should also be reliable, and since they are to operate from expendable, light-weight power sources, they should be efficient.
Spark discharges have long been used to generate RF signals. In fact, so called "spark-gap" transmitters antedate vacuum tube RF sources by many years and, indeed, their use continued until long after the vacuum tube transmitters became available, largely because the spark-gap devices were both inexpensive and highly reliable.
The principal object of the invention is to provide a spark discharge pulse generator meeting the above criteria and capable of multi-megawatt peak power in the VHF and UHF portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.